Powerbroker was never power hungry

One of
Nick Minchin
’s political foes noted yesterday a particular oddity of the Liberal Party right’s departing chief warrior: he was a powerbroker who has not been power hungry.

This was more true in the federal sphere than in the strange world of South Australian Liberal Party politics. But it did make him not just an oddity but a great asset to the party – and particularly its conservative wing – for at least the last three decades.

The man had a strategic brain and with his departure, the conservatives are reduced to a rabble of noisy bullies.

Just how big a loss is summarised in one simple fact: Minchin’s expected replacement as opposition Senate leader is
Eric Abetz
, the man best known to the public for his role in last year’s OzCar debacle but who is recognised around Parliament House as the deluded chap who thinks he is the Liberals’ version of John Faulkner when it comes to Senate committee interrogations.

Minchin always looked vaguely uncomfortable in the public spotlight. But his influence behind the scenes was extraordinary. He had been a Liberal Party apparatchik in the federal and SA machines going back to the 1980s and throughout the years of the Howard government. He was a steadying influence after the coalition’s defeat in 2007. Yet his departure in the wake of an horrific accident suffered by one of his children comes at a time when his legacy – federally and in South Australia – is controversial.

SA Opposition Leader
Isobel Redmond
yesterday conceded defeat in an election that was within the coalition’s grasp. Redmond was the surprise success of the campaign who only emerged as Opposition Leader because the eternally warring factions of the South Australian party were unable to back their respective candidates.

Pragmatists in South Australian Labor happily concede the government ultimately only survived because the same warring factions – led by Minchin and
Christopher Pyne
– had put dud candidates into the marginal seats the coalition needed to win.

Equally, his role in bringing down
Malcolm Turnbull
remains a puzzle to many of his colleagues. Minchin brought on one of the bloodiest chapters in federal Liberal Party history when he described climate change on the ABC’s Four Corners program as a left-wing conspiracy.

Related Quotes

Company Profile

His cause was both ideological and politically pragmatic: that the coalition would be decimated if it supported the government’s emissions trading scheme. Turnbull’s leadership was almost a bit of collateral damage to Minchin’s determination to get the Liberal Party to shift position on an emissions trading scheme.

The ultimate result was the unexpected rise of the most conservative leadership option open to the Liberals: Tony Abbott.

Yet some coalition figures suggested yesterday that Minchin has been quietly appalled by some of the policy decisions Abbott has taken since becoming leader.

This no longer matters. Minchin’s departure will profoundly change the internal dynamics and balance of the parliamentary Liberal party.